Yes Philly is 4th, but the Bay Area is 6th (at least according to 2016-2017 Nielsen ratings).
Markelle Fultz, Year Three: He's back! Big....?
- Thread starter PedroKsBambino
- Start date
The mental concerns sound to me like the issue is that he thinks he’s hurt and he can’t play freely while he feels hurt. He doesn’t have the confidence to go full steam.
I think that’s the most obvious answer. That he’s just cracking from the pressure is possible but I’m not sure the coaches would let the media on to that narrative if it were true.
I think that’s the most obvious answer. That he’s just cracking from the pressure is possible but I’m not sure the coaches would let the media on to that narrative if it were true.
I hate to try to jump inside anyone's head but from Brown's original comment that PHi is trying to get his head right to the fact that it has been almost a month since the 12.09 press release that said that his scapular muscle imbalance has been resolved, I understand it's hard not to go there.
As many have pointed out, this was bizarre as anything I can remember seeing three months ago when a #1 overall draft pick decided to play without shooting jumpers and it hasn't gotten less strange since then.
As many have pointed out, this was bizarre as anything I can remember seeing three months ago when a #1 overall draft pick decided to play without shooting jumpers and it hasn't gotten less strange since then.
I said it 2 and a half months ago, and I feel the same way now...
This has been handled in a truly bizarre fashion from the word go, and, for me, all indicators continue to point to the yips.
What's weird about that, though, is that the yips aren't really traditionally something you see with basketball players. Generally, the yips are reserved for sports where there is enough downtime in certain aspects of a game where a player can get into his own head. Throwing a baseball, catching a football, kicking a football... Basketball is such a reactionary, high speed sport that people usually don't have the time to get into their own head.
The only NBA player I can think of where the yips tanked a career was Nick Anderson, and even that was more about his free throws then him losing the ability to perform basic maneuvers like pulling up for a jumper.
Anyway, there is something very wonky about the way this whole thing has transpired, and I have this sinking feeling that this is far from over.
This is an excellent take, and hopefully we continue to evolve as a society. For example, I don’t think CTE killed Junior Seau, he looks like classic bi-polar. I don’t think it made Pittsburgh lineman drive into traffic; Schizophrenia did. Mental illness often sets on for men later, can be triggered by traumatic life events (career ending/#1 pick stress) and is still so stigmatized that players latch onto the ‘tough guy’ diagnosis and not the real one. IMHO.
I look back to when Stevens checked in with Fultz’s high school counselor in June (I know she was a family friend). Everyone attributed it to amazing attention to detail by Stevens, but perhaps he saw something. I’ve found that I can get a pretty quick read on 18 and 19 year olds the longer I work with them and I think that Brads recent college back ground is one of his great strengths.
Jaylen is a good example of this: he likely has some form of the yips at the free throw line, but it doesn't seem to affect his shooting in other situations at all.
Maybe it was this but I had mentioned upthread that I'm sure DA asked Fultz about his sitting out at UW for, what, four months - what the Drs. said, what he was doing to rehab it, where it hurt, what he thought it was, etc. I'm sure DA listened very closely to his answers.
With regard to JB, he doesn't have the yips or anything close to it. I don't love his shooting mechanics at the free throw line (my personal opinion without being a shot doctor of any sort is that he is actually too square at the line and needs to move his front shoulder up so that he's not fighting his body to shoot the ball on a straight line) and he's never been a great FT shooter. Just because he's not a good FT shooter doesn't mean he has the "yips."
With regard to Fultz, I'm not sure it's the yips. What I think we know is this:
- During summer league, he shot like he did at UW and had a reasonable amount of success.
- During the summer, for some reason - probably to counteract some criticism of his game, he overhauled his shooting mechanics.
- We know what he did to his FT mechanics, which was ugly.
- We also know that during his first practices of training camp, opposing players played "10 feet' off of him, daring him to shoot. See, e.g., this report ("However, there was one thing that was worrying. Jerryd Bayless played about ten feet off of him and dared him to shoot."). The video below looks to be an example of this and was taken from this 10.4. post.
- What I hadn't realized up to know is that apparently Fultz messed with his jump shot mechanics as well - as shown in the video below.
Whatever it is, the one thing on which we all can agree is that it is very very strange and I wonder if the true story will ever come out.
Yes to the former but I’m pretty sure we will get the reason before too long. Either he gets right and we hear about the steps he took, or he washes out and the Sixers leak everything and throw him under the bus as CYA.
Color me surprised that the Sixers had so little interaction with their 19-year-old number one pick that his train could completely come off the tracks before they even knew it was happening. I guess it could’ve happened to any team, but my sense is elite picks (for any sport) get incorporated into a program quickly.
Um, no. He last played in mid-Feb, and the team's last game was in the conference tourney in early March.
You're mostly right. It was six games (CO, UT, WSU, UCLA, and USC during the regular season and USC during the conference tournament). He missed a month's worth of games but didn't play 5 on 5 until summer league.
This might be better suited for the media forum, but I disagree with the suggestion that any media member seeking answers to what's going on with Fultz is being obnoxious - IMO that's a big part of their actual job. The Sixers sold a lot of season tickets under the auspices that "The Process" was complete with the addition of Simmons and Fultz; they traded a significant asset to obtain the #1 pick in the draft to get Fultz; they have for weeks now been saying that any physical problems have been resolved. If I'm a fan who paid money to buy tickets to this still-struggling team, I want to know why this guy is not playing, or even practicing with the team. And yet, it doesn't appear that any reporter in the city is even asking a follow up question like, "If his shoulder is healthy, why is he not practicing with the team?" or "why is he working with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf" "is it he front office, the medical staff, or the coaching staff that's keeping Fultz out" etc. That's the minimum, and we're not even talking about doing some actual digging. Brown and Colangelo, and even Fultz are around every day. The other day, It was reported that Fultz said "Put me in coach." Whether it was somewhat in jest or not, why isn't Brown being asked whether it's his decision to keep Fultz away? Why is nobody asking what's going on?
Perhaps obnoxious is the wrong word.
Long ago and far away sportswriters were often closely allied with the teams and players and this caused them to turn their heads when players were walking into the hotel drunk when the reporter was stepping out to get breakfast. It was not unusual for them to get off the record info from GMs and coaches that was not meant for publication and a request to "go easy on the kid, he's having a rough stretch" was heeded by the media. I don't know how the Philly media is at this time, but it would not surprise me if they are trying not to subject a 19 yo kid to a barrage of media coverage when he is already self-concious.
Then again, I am probably deluding myself and they are toeing the line because they have been threatened with banishment from the pre-game buffet if they don't.
The Philly media isn't much better than Boston or NY. The fan base is especially negative. I'm surprised they aren't all over Fultz already.
And...we have some video! The shoulder looks healthy enough going up for the dunk, but the jump shot at :20, we'll let speak for itself.
Wow, he keeps fooling around with his shot. Now his jumper release is below his head?
Here's another video showing him shooting a pull-up, which is closer to what he used to do (may need to click through to the tweet).
Yikes. This won't get better under game pressure. Anyone who expects him to shoot at a legitimate NBA level this season is out of his mind. The kid's gonna have a lot of work to do in the offseason.
I'm not a shrink or a sports psychologist, but the way he looks at the sky in dismay after missing that pullup isn't super encouraging, and I'm rooting for the kid now.
Gotta say I really miss London Sox's presence in this thread.
Have no fear, though: Liberty Ballers will still buy your Fultz stock!
Have no fear, though: Liberty Ballers will still buy your Fultz stock!
Wow, that is awful. It looks like what a decent athlete who never played basketball might do without coaching.
If he's a bust, Philly's future isn't nearly as bright. They still have one of the Lakers/Kings picks though.
Yes, this gets to something I've been wondering for a while now. Did Danny and Brad see something in Fultz' scouting and workout that others (or at least the Sixers) didnt? If so, it makes the trade even more brilliant than it already was. Unfortunately, I don't think we'd ever find out if it were true, but it's fun to think about.
I was rooting against him because I wanted the Sixers to lose the trade, but now I just feel really bad for him.
Sorry I upset your sensibilities. But I don't like liars or frauds. Nor do I like people too fragile to handle criticism despite making millions of dollars to play a game they love.
If Fultz actually has a serious mental illness that messes with his livelihood, sure, I'll retract my comment. But my guess is, all he has is the yips. He's still set for life. He's just not very good at basketball and can't handle criticism so he had to make up a fake injury.
Yeah after seeing that biographical article, I really liked the guy. I was (and still am) rooting for him to be "decent rotation player but not more than that".
Wow, angry much?
Fultz is a, what, 19 year old kid who happened to be exceptionally good at playing basketball for a good portion of his life and was thrust into the spotlight as the #1 overall pick. I have no idea if he's fragile or what is going on but I know it's a lot to take on at 19 years old. Some guys can take it. Others - like Kwame Brown - can't. That doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them kids.
It's all very strange and we'll probably never know the true story but can we please wait a few months or years or maybe even decades before we make pronouncements about what is going on in this kid's head?
I don't think being fragile makes you a bad person. I do think making up a fake injury to avoid criticism makes you a bad person
Yeah, over-rated was very excellent whereas watching a seemingly decent teenage kid potentially fall apart on national TV would be pretty gross. Even if he is a lying, fragile, with-the-yips, can't handle criticism, overpaid fraud who can't play basketball well.
Rooting for another human being to fail is never noble. I'm not sure where you're getting your insight into his medical condition - I can assure you that every athlete has some kind of injury going on at any given time. And, instead of being bitter or spouting tough guy nonsense about liars and frauds and fragile people and my sensibilities, examine who it is who's getting pissed off at a teenaged stranger.
Not in a zero sum game, it's not. I root for everyone on a possible competitor to fail. If Fultz succeeds and makes the 76ers, a possible future competitor better, that hurts us. So every Celtics fan should root for Fultz to fail if they want us to succeed.
However, the fake injury just makes me dislike him more.
I'm getting my info from a former Lakers trainer
A "Scapular Imbalance" is not an injury. Fultz was not injured.
This is a pretty disreputable view on life, in general.
It's not a zero sum game, anyway.
I think you misread the article. But, if you want to talk more about patterning movements in athletics and their effect on performance as well as the pain and discomfort that can result, start a thread and maybe one of us can enlighten the other.
This tough guy nonsense makes me really fucking sad.
Leaving aside the sheer number of assumptions (whose decision was it to present this as an injury? How long has he been dealing with the injury? Did it lead him to change his mechanics?) you're making just to justify excoriating the guy: even if it is the case that he made the injury up out of whole cloth to avoid playing - which I doubt is the case - weakness is not a thing to despise.
There's a whole spectrum of mental health problems that you can't give a particular name to, or diagnose easily - and it's attitudes like yours that stigmatize anything that isn't a traumatic brain injury that make it so difficult for people to seek help for their problems. What would you rather: he go when he's ready, or trot himself out there with the tips before he's ready so you can watch him fail?
Everybody needs help occasionally. Maybe he's working through this with a sports psychologist. We don't know. Maybe he needed to lie a little to have some privacy from exactly the kind of ultramasculine criticism you're levying so he can work out whatever's going on. If he did, good for him.
Edit: I see now that you want him to fail. Well, you know what I always say: laundry over human beings.
He subscribes to Vladimir Putin's economics newsletter. There is a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and the way you get it for yourself is to take it, by coercion or force, from other people who have it.
...Then, from what I hear, you get the women. A wise man said that once. Just model your views on the world after Tony Montana from Scarface, and you'll never go wrong.
Completely different ideas.
There is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. Each transaction people make between each other has two winners. Each believe they are made better off.
There is a fixed amount of wins in an NBA season. If the Sixers add another all-star/superstar that decreases our chances of winning the championship. There is only one NBA champion. I root for banners.
Fultz is not in charge of whatever P.R. spin the Sixers org wants to put on his story. Stop with that nonsense.
He's a 19yo kid with shit to figure out. Half of my friends couldn't find their asses with both hands at 19. I get the idea of not wanting the Sixers to be another obstacle on the way to championships, but baby Jesus weeps.
He's a 19yo kid with shit to figure out. Half of my friends couldn't find their asses with both hands at 19. I get the idea of not wanting the Sixers to be another obstacle on the way to championships, but baby Jesus weeps.
Leaving aside the other shitty things you've said, your stance is that if he is faking a basketball injury to avoid criticism about his basketball game, he is a bad person. As in, like, he is a bad human being? I hope you've never faked sick to get out of work of school at 19, you manly mother fucker, you. Otherwise, by your definition, you're a scum bag.
No. I haven't. Because that's wrong. To shirk your duties with a fake thing incapacitating you is very wrong in my opinion.